ACORN workers offer tax tips to 'hooker'
Friday, September 11, 2009
A prostitute by any other name is a "performing artist." Or so says a now-fired ACORN worker.
An independent, conservative filmmaker and a colleague, posing as a Congressional-wannabe friend to a prostitute (this scenario alone creates a whole other set of questions...), visited the Baltimore office of Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), which was created to help inner city communities and their residents.
But I suspect that such creative renaming of the world's oldest profession, along with some suspect tax advice, is not exactly how most community groups try to help their clientele.
Bad, by all definitions, tax advice: The latest ACORN controversy began when an independent filmmaker and his female colleague went to the office under the pretense of seeking advice on how the woman could account for her illegal income as she tried to buy a house to be used as a brothel. .
One ACORN staffer began by classifying, for employment code purposes, prostitution as performance art. As the first video (below) shows, from there, she dug herself into a deeper hole of ethical and ostensibly professional doo-doo.
The ACORN employee, described in the video as a tax specialist, also did a little down and dirty accounting and told the woman that she could "probably write off at least $7,000" of her estimated $9,000 fake streetwalker income.
She also suggested other various deductions, including clothing purchases (a stretch, since as far as I know, there's not an official prostitute uniform required to do the job) to "grooming" expenses (not discussed in detail, thank goodness!) to "gifts" (condoms) to clients.
From bad to awful: Other tax moves recommended by the ACORN workers included claiming as dependents some of the young women who, according to the ruse, would work in the proposed bordello.
That would allow the faux hooker more exemptions to claim on her personal tax filing, according to the second video, as well as the child tax credit and additional child tax credit.
One of the ACORN women also offered the fake prostitute a deal on filing helping her file her tax return. Since she was just starting her business, the community group employee said she would file her Schedule C for just $50 instead of $150.
Legitimate tax updates on their way: As I was sitting at the gate at Love Field last night waiting (for three hours!) for my weather-delayed plane to arrive so I could get home, I caught a glimpse of a CNN report on this latest ACORN scandal.
What a shock to discover today, as I was catching up on e-mail and news that I missed while spending three days at the IRS Tax Forum in Dallas, that it was tax related.
The timing of this ACORN tax advice mess was too funny, as the news broke just as I was wrapping up three days attending legitimate tax seminars led by representatives of various tax professional groups and the IRS.
The sound tax advice was part of the Dallas edition of the IRS Nationwide Tax Forum. One more Forum will be held this year in Atlanta at the end of the month if you're interested.
I learned lots of good stuff at the Dallas event and I'll be sharing it here on Don't Mess With Taxes and in stories I'll write this coming tax-filing season for Bankrate.com ... as soon as I recover from my longer-than-expected trip and and sort through my literal 4½-inch stack of notes and tax-related material. So stay tuned!
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